Good governance supports a culture and ethos which ensures behaviour with integrity, a strong commitment to ethical values, and respect for the rule of law.

Good governance helps to define priorities and outcomes in terms of sustainable economic and societal benefits and to determine the policies and interventions necessary to optimise the achievement of these priorities and outcomes. It means implementing good practices in transparency, reporting, communications, audit and scrutiny to deliver effective accountability.

Good governance means developing the Department’s capacity, including the capability of the leadership team, management and staff.

Good governance ensures openness, effective public consultation processes and comprehensive engagement with domestic and international stakeholders.

The objective of the Governance Framework is to ensure that the Department’s systems of accountability and responsibility, including its compliance arrangements, are effective, robust, clear and identifiable. It is intended as a guide to everyone in the Department, and to those we serve, on how we do our work. It also sets out our standards of conduct, our values and the governance systems that determine the way that we operate.

The Department’s Governance Framework was reviewed and updated in September 2017 to reflect corporate governance developments since it was first published in May 2016. It is kept under ongoing review and updated accordingly from time to time. It will be formally reviewed again in 2019.